Pinay Punk Original Lizzie Killian Finds a New Groove With Teens in Trouble

Lizzie Killian is an overnight success two decades in the making thanks to her new project, Teens in Trouble.

The band’s debut full-length album, What’s Mine (out March 29 via Asian Man Records), graduates this Bay Area original from the background to the lead. With contemplative slacker protests in sonically punchy packages, Killian’s songwriting excels with melodic tracks that linger. From the anthemic opening single, “You Don’t Want to Mess with Me,” to the record’s finale, “I’m Not Perfect,” there’s a musical maturity that complements her own journey laid bare on the record.

“The weird thing is I’ve just been trying to use this project as a way to dig into my authentic self or whatever, hokey stuff like that, and really trying to tune into what feels good for me,” Killian says.

The approach seems to be working: Teens in Trouble recently came off a tour run supporting veteran rockers RX Bandits. “Ever since I’ve been doing that, these opportunities have been presenting themselves,” Killian reflects.

Raised in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district in a Filipino immigrant household, Killian got her first taste of D.I.Y. when she saved enough money to buy her first electric guitar. She spent her teen years waiting outside 21-and-up venues to play with the band she joined, the Filipina-led Sputterdoll.

“Being a Filipina woman myself, it made me realize there was more than the white guy-fronted bands that I had been listening to, that we can rock just as hard,” she says. 

Sputterdoll played Warped Tour’s Shiragirls stage in 2005. They played The Pound — a great rock club out of horror movie central casting on Pier 96 — with Plain White T’s before Plain White T’s churned out a national hit. Of course, rocking DNA Lounge is part of her local lore. Unfortunately, pursuing music caused her to clash with her parents. She eventually worked three jobs to support herself, all while trying to keep her music dreams alive.

Once Killian became a certified musical veteran, she noticed her contemporaries in the Bay Area’s music scene mostly moved on or moved out. Teens in Trouble was born from a need to be independent and active, but she was twisting in the wind, and the project immediately stalled.

“My brain was so focused on work, that I didn’t know how to write songs anymore. At least, that’s what it felt like,” she says. “There was a point in 2017 where I was like, ‘Maybe that’s it for me. I guess I’m done with music or something.’”

Killian loves to bet on herself, though, and music is her gamble of choice. So in 2022, she doubled-down, asserting herself as a songwriter and performer, launching Teens in Trouble in earnest. Killian’s D.I.Y.-ethos meshes well with the label that signed her. San Jose’s Asian Man Records is Mike Park’s long-running operation out of his mom’s South Bay garage. That support energized Lizzie to assemble musicians to fully realize Teens in Trouble under her guidance.

Despite moving to Raleigh, North Carolina right before the pandemic, Killian’s Bay Area network has been key to her momentum for What’s Mine, recorded at District Recording in San Jose.

A slew of music videos with her best friend, director and cinematographer Aja Pop (another San Francisco Filipina), have amplified Teens in Trouble’s presence in the Bay and beyond. The visuals for the singles on What’s Mine — “You Don’t Want to Mess with Me,” “Playlist” and “It’s Up To Me” — all feature Aja Pop’s quirky and dreamy creative signature, inspired by French filmmaker’s Michel Gondry’s work with The White Stripes, and bolster Teens in Trouble’s proper arrival.

“I was not at all surprised that [Lizzie] figured it out, and got her act together — so to speak — to make this project happen,” says Pop. “I encourage all my friends to get their act together literally and figuratively because once you got that, that’s a sign of self-love.”

Randy Moore, a San Jose-based bassist and producer, became part of Teens in Trouble through working with Asian Man Records. In a strangers-must-be-friends scenario, Killian entrusted Moore to produce her music — his first time producing an entire album for someone other than himself. A shared love of early Weezer’s vulnerability informed their common goals. Killian’s only directive? If the song didn’t make her move, it had to be reworked.

“A lot of the topics Lizzie talks about are vulnerable subjects, but instead of doing a somber overall record, guitars are big, guitars are heavy — we still like to rock out, but we still like to talk about our feelings,” Moore says. “That was the mantra going into it.”

Rounding out the lineup are lead guitarist Mike Huguenor of San Jose, whose old band Shinobu was often found on bills with Sputterdoll, and drummer Henry Chadwick from Santa Cruz, now based in Portland.

According to Killian, it all happened so fast — assembling a reliable team, getting onto a label, playing shows regularly again and now a full-length album. So it goes for an overnight success decades in the making.

“It’s been kind of a wild ride. In some regards, it feels like it went from zero to 100,” Killian says.

Aja Pop adds: ”We’re Filipino-American girls living out our creative fantasies, not only in the Bay Area, but coast to coast, in places you wouldn’t expect.”

As for Lizzie’s relationship with her parents?

“We get along great now. They love Teens in Trouble,” she says. “Every time I visit, my mom’s always watching the same four videos that are on YouTube right now. I’m like, ‘Mom, we have other songs too, I swear.’”

With What’s Mine, Killian is making music that would feel at home blasting out of an Outer Sunset garage, from a surf van at Ocean Beach or out of someone’s headphones on the N Judah train on another foggy day of hating work. It’s a cohesive, well-sequenced listen that invites an immediate replay.

“That’s kinda funny about putting music out, especially in this time where everything is so visible for people. People are watching my growth as a musician or artist through these releases,” Killian reflects, “which is both scary, but also I’m proud of the music I’m putting out and my progress.”

Teens in Trouble celebrates ‘What’s Mine’ with a virtual listening party on Bandcamp on Friday, March 29, at 9.a.m.